Lawyers in Huelva and Alicante with million-dollar grants from the Spanish Treasury; an agricultural biotechnology company and another renewable energy company; or millions in Iberian bricks from Stoneshield, the fund founded by Felipe Morenés Botín-Sanz de Sautuola, eldest son of the chairman of Banco Santander, and the Argentinian Juan Pepa.
These are some of the investments in Spain of Juan Adán II of Liechtenstein, one of the greatest fortunes in the world, sovereign prince and head of state of this wealthy microstate. Considered the richest nobleman in Europe, His Serene Highness, as he is known there, leads one of the oldest and most opaque royal dynasties on the continent, with a tradition of nine centuries and an almost medieval power that has survived various scandals over time. time.
Juan Adan II made his debut in 2017 in Bloomberg’s top 500 world millionaires. Currently, the agency attributes to him a net worth of around 9.6 billion dollars (around 8.6 billion euros). This places him among the 300 richest people on the planet, ahead of Rafael del Pino (Ferrovial) or the Russian Pavel Durov, founder of Telegram.
The bulk of this colossal fortune comes from his private banking and asset management company, LGT Group. A “family business,” as they define it on their website, which they have controlled for more than 80 years and which has worked for decades with some of the world’s richest people.
LGT is in the hands of a family foundation, owner of an excellent art collection. With its headquarters in Switzerland and offices in Australia, China, France, Germany, the United States or the United Kingdom (not in Spain), the entity announced in August a new record of assets under management, 356 billion Swiss francs (378,000 million euros) in June 2024. Bloomberg gives the bank a valuation of around 6,000 million Swiss francs (around 6,375 million euros). But the entity is not listed and the financial information it publishes is scarce.
The family’s investments also include an investment fund in Luxembourg, L-Gam, which in 2023 bought Trinson, a Galician sensory marketing company that supplies Inditex, in a deal worth 200 million. Another branch of its activities is the Liechtenstein Group, which until December was chaired by Hans Adam II’s youngest son, Constantine of Liechtenstein, who died suddenly for unknown reasons at the age of 51.
With interests in agribusiness, energy and real estate, the Liechtenstein Group’s portfolio includes palaces in Vienna, properties in Boston, Ricetec, a hybrid rice producer in Texas (USA); Wilfersdorf, the largest single-owner farm in Austria; and wineries and livestock companies in Uruguay.
Also several Spanish companies: the Spanish company Green Universe Agriculture, dedicated to the application of biotechnology to sustainable agriculture and based in Madrid. And Valle del Guadiana SL, domiciled in Pozuelo de Alarcón (Madrid), dedicated to the cultivation of avocados in three farms in Villablanca (Alicante) and Ayamonte (Huelva), and which since 2021 alone has received 3.34 million in public guarantees and subsidies in Spain, according to data from the Ministry of Finance. The majority are subsidized loans from the Technological and Industrial Development Center (CDTI) and guarantees from the Official Credit Institute (ICO).
Another of its companies is Glide Energy, based in Madrid and with a portfolio of 3.2 gigawatts (GW) of photovoltaic and storage projects, 1.1 TWh of bioethanol and more than 50 renewable projects, according to its website.
244 million
One of LGT’s Luxembourg SICAVs is Crown Small Cap Real Estate II, established in May 2019. Focused on real estate investments in industrial and logistics assets, offices, mixed-use, retail, hotels or data centers, after contributions from ten investors, managed at the end of 2023, the investments are valued at 244.2 million, or 29% more, according to the accounts presented a few days ago. Spain represented 7% of its portfolio.
While the Grand Duchy was still trying to identify the ultimate beneficiaries of its companies, John Adam II was listed as the owner of Crown Small Cap Real Estate III. This information was no longer available in November 2022, following a ruling by the European Court of Justice that the disclosure of this information violated “the fundamental rights to respect for private life and the protection of personal data.”
Among the vehicles in which this SICAV participated at the end of 2023 was, with an investment of 10 million made in 2022, the company also based in Luxembourg Stoneshield Southern European Real Estate II. This vehicle managed 470 million in assets in 2023.
Stoneshield, the company founded by Morenés Botín and Pepa dedicated to real estate investments in southern Europe, has been a very active investor in the university residence market in Spain and Portugal in recent years. It manages one of the largest portfolios in the region, with almost 50 residences and 10,000 beds spread across 20 locations. In Spain, it operates under the Micampus brand, with a portfolio of 8,000 beds (2,000 of which are already operational) in around thirty accommodations in 16 cities, according to its website.
The proliferation of private universities is one of the factors that, according to the Minister of Housing, Isabel Rodríguez, explains the increase in housing rentals outside large capitals such as Madrid or Barcelona. “We see, for example, how the arrival of private universities to the detriment of public universities is generating tensions in some markets in medium-sized cities,” Rodríguez explained a few days ago in an interview with elDiario.es.
This Stoneshield company in which LGT participates also includes companies linked to Stoneshield’s MASID office megaprojects in Madrid and Barcelona. The most advanced is Tres Cantos (Madrid), presented in 2022 as the largest health sciences and innovation campus in Spain: more than 60,000 square meters with fifteen buildings, a capacity to accommodate 2,500 professionals and an investment of 200 million euros. The same investment will be made in Barcelona, where Stoneshield bought the Bayer headquarters and the Il·lumina building – the former Corberó factory – where the offices of companies such as Areas and Agfa are located at the beginning of this year, with the idea of creating another science campus like the one in Tres Cantos being explored.
Among the most recent investments of this Sicav of the sovereign bank of Liechtenstein is also Copernicus SCA-RAIF. Since 2023, an additional 8.3 million have been invested there. This vehicle manages 68.7 million of doubtful real estate loans in Spain and Italy. Its first investments were made in Spain in February and March 2023. It does not detail what these are.
Sovereign and magnate
Half sovereign, half businessman, the monarch born in Zurich (Switzerland) in 1945 is head of state in this rich Alpine territory between Switzerland and Austria that has built for years a dubious reputation as a tax haven and refuge for billionaires. The fortunes of those who have behind them tax scandals in Spain, such as Shakira or the Aristrain family, who used as their leader a minister of the dictator Francisco Franco who was a prominent figure of Opus Dei at the time, Gregorio López, have passed through here Bravo.
In Liechtenstein, 198 Spanish residents had bank deposits whose data were passed on by the tax authorities to the anti-corruption unit in 2008 for possible tax crimes, after a leak of information for which the German secret service paid 5 million euros to a confidant. The royal family of the microstate described it as a “German attack”.
The country, with a per capita income of $187,267 in 2022, second only to Monaco, according to the World Bank, is one of the smallest in the world. With an area of 160 square kilometers, equivalent to the city of Segovia, its population is just over 39,000, as many as the capital Soria. In 2012, with an overwhelming majority of 76.1%, they rejected the withdrawal of the sovereign’s right to veto decisions taken in a referendum by his subjects. The monarch has very broad powers and can even personally appoint the judges of the microstate.
The bank of His Serene Highness also registered in Luxembourg, among others, the SICAV Crown Growth Opportunities Europe III, which, after the contributions of 18 investors, closed the year 2023 with investments of 401.4 million in 1,259 companies through dozens of funds and compartments. Spain represented 4% of its portfolio, which it does not detail.
Crown Europe Small Buyouts V SCS, launched in August 2018 and which, after raising 600 million from 29 investors, has invested in more than 300 companies in information technology, industry, health, consumer, finance or communication, which it also does not break down by “confidentiality”. Spain represents 5% of its portfolio.
Another vehicle is Lightrock Growth Fund I SA, SICAV-RAIF, a fund that managed $1,234 million at the end of 2023 with a portfolio of interests in 29 companies in India, Brazil, Mexico, the Netherlands, Italy and Germany, among others. areas such as agriculture, finance, water, biotechnology, online education, technology, logistics or electric-powered aviation.
